Chapo Trap House - BONUS: Will interviews Delaware Senate candidate Jessica Scarane

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

Will talks to Jess Scarane, who is challenging incumbent Chris Coons for a U.S. Senate seat in Delaware. They discuss Delaware’s unique importance as a state, the limits of “compromise,” building power for progressive policies, and how to lift voters’ expectations for what they can demand from their politicians. Get involved with Jess’ campaign here: https://www.jessfordelaware.com/

OK, hello. I'm coming to you here with a special bonus Jaffa episode. It's a one in our candidate interview series, and I'm pleased to say that I'm joined now by candidate for the United States Senate from the state of Delaware, Jessica Skirain. Jessica, how's it going? It's going great. We are two days from Election Day, so we are amped up and focused on getting out to vote right now. This is the final 48, and because of that, I'm violating my podcast guild sort of work standards by recording this before noon on any day, but this is making a special, special

circumstances here. I was thinking that. I was wondering about that myself. Like you said, this is the final 48. You're in the absolute home stretch right here. So I guess my first question is, what is your closing pitch here in the final days? What is this campaign? Yeah, so we've been focused on mostly making sure that anyone we haven't reached yet, we're trying to get to. So we've been back out knocking doors because anybody that we haven't been able to phone bank or text through kind of pandemic period, we still want to make sure

that we get in front of them and let them know they have a choice. And the choice is between someone who is going to continue to favor corporate donors and policy that has failed us as a state and as a country, or someone who is committed to actually making a government that works for working people and fighting for the things that we all deserve, like healthcare and education and jobs with good wages and housing. So that's really what we're making sure that people know the distinction between myself and the Senator and then doing all we can to make sure they get out on Tuesday. And like, you know, you're going up against Chris Coons, who's a very established Democrat.

He's a guy who's thought of as being sort of a very influential hinge point in the Senate and, you know, or as Politico has described him, the GOP's favorite Senator. But because the Senate as an institution is places so much emphasis on, you know, deal makers like that or someone who can get things done. I mean, how do you make the case to voters who are, you know, Democratic voters who are very committed to like what they know and what's been established and like sort of the brand of Chris Coons? Like, how do you, how do you make the case to them rather than the sort of the you're like a younger, more millennial base of people who want to hear stuff about the Green New Deal or Medicare for all? How

do you go after that group of like older Democratic voters that are so crucial as we've learned in this recent primary to electing anyone to any office? Yeah. So I definitely want to draw the distinction that what we're running on and the platform we're running on has not only attracted young people, right? Like we have a very multiracial, multi-generational coalition of support from volunteers. I mean, we have volunteers who are too young to vote all the way to people in their late 70s and early 80s who are like fighting to get us elected. But there certainly are the more establishment type voters. And we are working to chip away at some of them, right? Like we know that we have to win some

of them to be able to win at all. And usually the conversation, what we hear from a lot of those people sometimes is like, the senator's very smart. He's very measured. I like that he does bipartisanship. And where we try to steer that conversation is really like, okay, absolutely. Like those are great qualities, but what has it done for us as a state, for you as a country, and trying to get back to talking about policy and record from there? And often where we'll go is that bipartisanship is not inherently good. And I think senators like Senator Coons and some others have tried to make that the case. I've tried to say that as long as something is bipartisan, it must have been good, right? We came to a compromise,

we came to an agreement. But we try to talk to people about how rolling back regulations on the banks after the financial crisis was bipartisan. But that's not helping us voting to allow the chicken plants that are processing chicken downstate to not report their emissions while they're poisoning people's wells is bipartisan, but it's not good for us. So we kind of try to chip away at this idea of bipartisanship being inherently good. And to your point, like, just getting things done is not inherently good if they're compromises that are made on the backs of the people of our state. We also really call out the fact that he's running on this kind of like, I'm standing up to Trump thing that's kind of been his messaging this

whole campaign. He's been sending mailers about all the things that Trump has done, particularly through coronavirus, which he's basically sending mailers telling us all the ways that he's failed to stop Trump. But what we'll call out there is that he's not actually standing up to him when he votes to confirm over 120 of Trump's judges. And that really gives people pause. And they say, Oh, I didn't know about that. And these judges are playing into exactly what Mitch McConnell and Republicans want to do with the Senate. You know, they don't want to enact legislation. They're not trying to do anything that helps the American people. They're simply trying to use the Senate to take over the courts and confirm appointees.

So why are you helping them achieve their main goal in doing this? And that really gives people pause, particularly when we talk about some of these judges, Kurt Engelhardt, who sent abortion rights and the ACA back to the Supreme Court. Honestly, just this week, three of the judges who voted to uphold basically the poll tax in Florida on requiring people to pay back their fines before they can vote after getting out of jail. Three of those judges were judges that Senator Kuhn's voted to confirm. So that's usually the angle we try to take there is like, how is this standing up to the most dangerous president as he tells us?

Yes, I think judges would are as a good, good, good tact to take there. Because I mean, you, you mentioned the sort of the phrase that I hear used over and over again by a lot of committed Democratic partisans, or at least those who are on the side of incumbents and kind of, for lack of a better term, the establishment, it's always this idea, especially in the Senate, about getting things done. And that like, you know, oh, you can't just go in there and have this laundry list of your hopes and dreams. Like, like the Senate is an institution that is designed to, you know, water down legislation and bring this compromise. So that's why, you know, people like Chris Kuhn's are highly prized. But yeah,

I mean, like, now more than ever, that rings hollow, because like, like the, like you said, Kuhn's campaign and many Democrats like him are making their entire pitch about Donald Trump and how he is such a uniquely dangerous threat to the republic and like his corruption and authoritarianism are so bad, like X, Y, and Z, then like, well, then you can't really be like, if that's the case, you can't really like, maybe we should grind everything to a halt in terms of like coming through his agenda rather than prizing this idea about getting things done and just sort of keeping the wheels of power turning. Right, right. And there's this idea that, you know, when you fight for compromise, who

are you, who are you compromising with, right? Like, and if you are compromising with now the most dangerous administration, the people who weren't in the room are the ones that are actually harmed by the impact of that legislation. And you get to celebrate and shake hands and say, oh, we got this bill signed, but you don't have to ever live with the consequences of it. And I think that's really what people are tired of. A lot of times you hear like, oh, people just want Congress to function, but they don't want it to function if it means that their lives are being negatively impacted. They want a government that actually seeks to take care of them, to lift them up, to create a foundation that they can live

a good life on. It's not just get things done that destroy us. And this, what the senator will say, and people like him will say is, well, every time I'm compromising and I'm agreeing to maybe give something up, I'm getting something in return. But we have yet to see the payoff of that return. I mean, I think in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic, when people are about to go into eviction, be kicked out of their homes, be, continue to be unemployed and lose the benefits that are actually keeping them with their head above water. Maybe that would have been a good time to cash in some of that credit that you've built up with Republicans. And this idea that they're ever going to do that has never proven to be true. They have

never turned in the direction of Democrats and said, what is it that you guys need here? We catered the ACA to them in 2009, and no one voted for it. So what are we actually doing here? We're just going along with everything that they want and being pulled further and further in their direction and never winning anything back. Yeah. Take your cues here. If you listen to this and want to want to phone bank or Canvas for Justice Campaign here, if you encounter, if you run into that wall, it's just sort of like agree with it and then turn it around. And it's just sort of really like the show me the receipts here. What are we getting in return for all this? What are the specifics

here that Chris Coons is really bringing back to Delaware other than Dupont, Gilead, Oxford, Blue Cross, Blue Shield? That's who he's bringing to the table here or who he's opening the door for. But I guess I also want to ask, when I was looking it up in the political article titled The GOP's Favorite Democrat About Chris Coons, it was said of a possible primary challenge. It could happen to me. I'm just not worried about it. And this article is back in 2018. So I guess I want to ask you, when did you first get the idea to mount such a daunting challenge against such a well-established Democrat in a state that doesn't have a lot

of high turnover and is very much a kind of Democratic party death star? Like when did you have a road to Damascus moment when you decided to like, hey, I'm going to run for the Senate? Yeah. Well, I think it's like one of those decisions that was sort of like a long time coming and then a really quick decision almost. I've been, what I had done in our state to try to just work on the issues that I see here of people being underserved was through nonprofit work for many years. So volunteering, tutoring and mentoring young students and them being on the board of a nonprofit. But ultimately, that got me to a place where I

realized that this is never going to actually solve these problems, right? Like this is treating symptoms. It's great for, you know, I was on the board of a nonprofit called Girls Think of Delaware. We provided services and programming for girls who came from some of the most under-resourced neighborhoods in our state. And it was fantastic programming for the girls who came through our door or for the girls who got our services in their school. But it didn't stop the fact that another girl was going to always have to come through our door because her neighborhoods were still divested from her mom and dad were still working jobs where they were paid poverty wages and had to piece multiple jobs together. Her schools

were underfunded. Her teachers don't have supplies. Her family doesn't have healthcare. Her housing is making her sick. Like, we're not solving those problems. And I don't see even a focus on those problems from the leadership that we have in our state and a state that is now actually has more people living in poverty than we did right after the recession. We were one of the only one of two states in 2018 whose poverty level increased. And I don't hear any conversation about that from our leaders. So that experience really kind of calcified in me that we have to be addressing these root cause issues. And then the looking at Senator Coons in particular, this, like I said, this record on voting to enable Trump,

his record on taking millions of dollars from corporations and then voting in their favor, literally pharmaceutical companies voting against importing drugs from Canada, which would have lowered drug prices, working on a bill repeatedly to try to actually strengthen weak pharmaceutical patents to make it easier for them to defend them against generics and keep their profits high, voting in favor to again, like help the banks, help the chicken processing plants help all of the big industry in our state, but not the people who actually need support. And the kind of fast part of it was really when I was able to connect with people that I knew would be a really strong team. And because this is not something that

you can just take out on your own. But it's there's not a ton of infrastructure for it in the state of Delaware. You know, I kind of talk about the fact that we were the only state in the country that doesn't didn't have a DSA chapter until like this year. We don't have a lot of kind of insurgency frameworks and infrastructure to do these things. It was still relatively new when Kerry Evelyn Harris challenged our other senator in 2018. But we've been building since then and knowing that we had that experience was really the place where I was like, okay, I'm going to be surrounded by people who can help us do this and build this out. And I think we've been really successful in that and building

out both the staff and the volunteer network and the voter outreach program. I mean, you mentioned Delaware, and I wanted to ask sort of for our listeners, like, what is the deal with Delaware? Because I mean, I always think of the the famous joke from Wayne's world where they're like cycling through the states and doing like a sort of stereotype about like, you know, being out west or being in Chicago. And then they just get to Delaware and they're like, Oh, hey, we're in Delaware. But I mean, interestingly, I've never heard that before. Yeah, no, it's it's it's it's it's. But interestingly, like sitting aside like the sort of culture character or personality of the state, politically, Delaware is sort

unique or like people forget about it and I think maybe it's it's done that way on purpose, but could you talk a little bit about the state of Delaware politically as this interesting like little little fiefdom? Yeah, I mean it's been, I get frustrated sometimes because you'll hear sort of the the internet discourse about our state is like it's such a moderate state, it's such a centrist state and it's like you're talking about the leaders that we've had and not necessarily people who live here and that has been driven because of the corporate influence in our state and that's actually why it's really important that people should care about Delaware and to your point if it's sort of flying under the radar it helps that corporate influence

stay in place because we are the state where two-thirds of the Fortune 500 companies are incorporated and the reason for that is because we have very business friendly laws and business friendly courts. So if a company is challenged they want to be challenged in the state of Delaware where essentially the court says was the behavior that this company took in shareholders favor? Yes, then it was the right thing to do and that doesn't take into any account of other stakeholders, employees, customers, the environment, like just the world around that company. So that's why we have corporate influence here that we do and that has been basically the power structure in our state and finding people who are willing to uphold that power structure

to run for seats of government has basically been the plan and like I said it hasn't been challenged that much. I mean Senator Coons this is the first time he's even faced a primary challenge as a senator even when he first ran there was no one put up against him even when he was reelected no one was put up against him because it just has not been the culture here to challenge that power but that's changing and this is really the year where we're even seeing a whole lot of down ballot candidates running for our state legislature, our state senate, city councils to finally say like this does not have to be the way our state operates anymore and it's important because it does actually affect every single person in the country.

You know credit card companies are based in Delaware because our usury laws are really lax so it allows that credit card company to charge you 35 interest or whatever it is. So people should care about frankly who gets elected to the general assembly in Delaware which I know sounds kind of hyperbolic but it's not. It really does affect the lives of everyone else in our country who is leading our state. I mean maybe even more so than states like New York and California or like Texas like the big boys that get a lot of the national profile but yeah it's just like should you care about elections in Delaware like I don't know do you have a credit card? Exactly yeah. So like yeah like you mentioned like in the state you know

they've got the the courts, they've got two-thirds of America's Fortune 500 companies, they've got and you know it would stand to reason they have the politicians to match that and it was now it's Chris Coons and it was Joe Biden before him and Coons is often you know in the press is often favorably compared to Joe Biden as sort of carrying on his legacy in the senate from Delaware. You mentioned you know of course Coons hasn't faced a primary challenger before I mean I quoted him earlier saying you know you know it's unlikely that it'll happen but I'm not worried about it if it does. How has the Chris Coons campaign responded to your campaign? I mean I would imagine that they would prefer just to not to acknowledge you at all but like hey

how has it been a challenge trying to try to get them to respond to you or attack you directly or just like you know how have they chosen to dealt with you with your sort of primary campaign? It's been to ignore it. I've even heard kind of again you know it's didn't hear it directly but for a while they were refusing to refer to me by name like stuff like that where they're just like we're going to pretend this doesn't exist. However I think well I know that they ran some push polling early in the summer because of people kind of reached out to us afterwards and then suddenly they put a campaign together and they seem to be a little worried now. So I think his quote two years ago that he shouldn't be worried about it was really misguided. They are now trying to he was

doing like a mailer a week as I said mostly about Donald Trump. They've spent over a million dollars in the last two months or so trying to basically be everywhere on on TV but they're really not doing enough in the way of direct voter contact which is where we are absolutely excelling. But they've been yeah absolutely it's been about ignoring us. We were ready to debate at any moment but they refused. Basically said the the paraphrase response that one of the student groups at local university got was basically not now not ever. Multiple groups have reached out. Mobile media outlets have reached out. I even tried to work through some people who run committees in the Democratic Party here in the state to reach out and refused. You know we were like

we'll record at 4 a.m. if you want if it's really that a scheduling issue but they've completely refused to debate and I think they recognize that's because our policies will actually win. You know we have in a state that has been repeatedly pulled on these issues. Medicare for all has 70% support among likely Democratic primary voters. The Green New Deal has over 70% support. Ending the filibuster actually has really large support because people recognize that it's a barrier to actually quote-unquote getting things done as you said and things that are actually good for the people. And these are all things that the senator actively opposes. So I think they realize that they can't run on policy and frankly they can't run on his record. There's

nothing in the record that's like this is what I'm happy to have championed for you in the last 10 years. So instead they're basically hiding from those conversations. He didn't even respond to a candidate questionnaire in one of the largest papers in the state. So they're not putting their policy information out there. They have volunteers actually lying to voters. Someone asked is this Kris Kuhn support Medicare for all in a texting chain and the volunteer said yes. Like he absolutely does not. So we know that as long as people are made aware of the issues in the record we win those conversations. It's just a matter of like pushing through and trying to get as many of those conversations as we can. So yeah like I mean they're ducking you and you

know like I think they've as you said that they've determined that their best strategy is to just sort of pretend that this isn't happening. But can in certain ways and you know it is always a tall order to knock off an incumbent especially in the Senate and someone as established as Kris Kuhn's. But in terms of like no one minding the store but also like the fact that you know we're still under sort of COVID lockdown and like you know one's kind of paying attention or everyone's focused on the national presidential race. Like are there certain ways do you think that this could work to your advantage in terms of like realistically how many votes it will really take to knock him off in like a low turnout election maybe? Yeah well one thing that's unique or

interesting about Delaware I guess and why we should be strategically targeting seats like these is because of its size. So Delaware has fewer than a million people but it still gets two Senate seats right? And in the 2018 election the primary election for Senate that election was won with 53,000 votes. So basically 83,000 people voted in that election. Now we're expecting higher turnout it's a presidential year people are a little more engaged but that's the type of investment we're talking about to win a Senate seat. So that's we are trying to prove out that strategically this is the way to win power in the Senate is to target these smaller overwhelmingly Democratic states and win there and build from there. So it's not that I'm saying it's easy but obviously

it's just a smaller task than when you compare it to like Massachusetts where 1.3 million people voted in that primary election. So the reason that I think we are actually breaking through though is in part because of COVID. Like a lot of people have it's pulled back the curtain for a whole lot of people right? I think there were people who were kind of able to believe the myth that everything was okay because it wasn't the negative things weren't directly affecting them. They seemed relatively stable and now that might not be the case for them. And it definitely shifted the conversation that we were able to have with some people particularly about Medicare for all particularly about things like paid leave and just better workers benefits and workers protections.

And I think there are a lot of people who are recognizing now that what was normal before is not what we should just be going back to. We have to figure out how we go to something better because we can't allow this to happen to us again. And that might not be everybody but those are absolutely there are people there that this opened up their their eyes in a way. And we were able to use our campaign operation through particularly the the height of the pandemic here in Delaware to basically turn it into a mutual aid and like check-in operation for people. And to before we had any political conversation it was very much like are you okay right now? Is there anything you need? And what we were able to do is connect people to actual food and resources and supplies.

We were able to find people housing who needed it who were like losing their housing before eviction moratoriums were in place. People who couldn't get their unemployment claims process and were waiting weeks and weeks and running out of money. We were able to help them. So in some ways I'm just really grateful that we were running this campaign at all and it be it we've been able to build on that sort of voter contacting operation through the summer. We haven't taken our foot off the gas. We're now up to calling you know yesterday we called like 54,000 people throughout the state to try to turn out the vote. So while I don't think that that level of enthusiasm exists in the senator's campaign. So it's not to say that that's a guarantee right you know which are still we

have to see what happens on election day but to fight through election day. But I know that we were breaking through to a whole lot more people and there were a whole lot more people who looked at our current reality and said maybe the status quo isn't actually working and maybe we actually have to be having a different conversation about how we move forward from this point. I mean you mentioned you know running under these strange circumstances or trying to run at like a traditional campaign that revolves a lot around outreach and like personal contact with voters during this very strange pandemic moment that makes doing things like that a lot more difficult or a lot more fraught. But broader like you're also running in the context of like not only

this pandemic but now we're seeing you know currently the entire west coast of this country be reduced to cinders and then also ongoing for the last couple months is just a cascading series of protests, uprisings, riots, whatever you want to call them about you know racial justice and police killings in this country. But I mean it's a sense now that we're feeling that like I mean it is the world ending, is American civilization coming apart? Like running for a higher office or like to be a public servant under really dire and like as long as I can remember like really depressing circumstances in this country's history where it just really seems like all these problems are getting worse and like there is nobody in charge who has any idea or even inclination to begin to

address them. Like does that level of hopelessness or like how do you fight against that or like does it give you extra energy like knowing how even more pressing like all these things that you're running your campaign? Like I mean if you can't get people behind the Green New Deal now like when are you going to do it? Right. Well it's interesting because I was talking to a woman a week or two ago and she was kind of dancing around like I want to ask you this question. I don't want it to be rude and I was like what does this woman want to ask me? Like I'm running through my head of all the things she could possibly go to. And she basically just said like you know you're going into like hell right? Like she basically was just like why what would drive you to do this?

Are you sure this is like the right thing? And so that is on people's minds of just this we are in this catastrophic moment. And I think that is why I ran. Like I ran because of all these crises. These all existed a year ago, two years ago, however many years ago. And they are just all coming to this point of this culmination. And I think it really shows that the senator we have is not the senator for this moment. I mean he calls the Green New Deal wild-eyed and then proposes a carbon tax that would also lift caps on emissions and allow polluters to just pay to pollute. And we have known for like 20 years that a carbon tax won't do it anymore. He proposes getting to net zero by 2050 at best. We know we will be beyond a place of repair by then. He looks at

public health or excuse me Medicare for all and calls it pie in the sky when voters themselves are like the system we have is barbaric and we absolutely have to change it. He has taken the second most amount of money from the fraternal order of police. And even after they have now endorsed Donald Trump for president, he hasn't returned it. So he has no credibility on the issue of police brutality and this racial justice uprising. He voted against Obama's nominee, Debo Adegbele, who was supposed to run or was was nominated to run the the office of civil rights, the DOJ. And he voted against that because of pressure from the FOP. So he is on the wrong side of every single important issue that we are facing as a state and as a country right now.

And particularly when it comes to the environment and Delaware, we are already experiencing these things. Like our state floods regularly. We are losing farmland by the day, acres and acres to salt water intrusion. The port of Wilmington is a massive economic center. It's a huge source for good paying union jobs for black and brown people. It's on track to be half underwater in my lifetime. We're on track to lose 10% of our landmass. We're going to have two plus months of extreme heat days that degrade our air quality, that degrade our health. And to say the best we can offer is a carbon tax because that is bipartisan. And as he says, it's even approved by Republican CEOs. I do not care about getting the approval of Republican CEOs. I care about the fact that

we are really at a point of no return. And any more moment of delay, any more moment of just these nibbles and small tweaks is literally endangering our lives at this point. So, I mean, all that being taken into consideration and knowing what we know about the institution of the Senate and just how hard it is to get anything done or pass the legislation, get things done, as I said, should you win this campaign? What would be your day one agenda in the Senate from Delaware to represent? What would be the thing that in your mind could immediately do, like, the most amount of good in terms of highlighting an issue or spearheading legislation? Like, what do you imagine being, like, you know, hitting the ground running, like,

your number one priority? I'm going to give you more than one. But I think they can all work in parallel. I mean, Medicare for all is absolutely the thing that comes out the most. People, every single voter I talk to brings up healthcare in some way, shape, or form. And we know that the system is failing us. So becoming a co-sponsor of that day one, absolutely, particularly the Jayapal bill. The other thing we have to do is get rid of the filibuster, particularly if we take back Senate power in the Senate. Like, we have to all get on board with doing that. It is a process that has allowed minority rule and, frankly, white supremacy to retain power in the Senate. And it works against democracy and it works

against the things that we actually need to fight for as a people. And so I think those things have to happen in parallel. And I think it has to be not just saying, okay, I showed up and now I co-sponsored Medicare for all. So I've done the right thing. Oh, I've showed up and I've said the filibuster needs to go. I have done the right thing. It has to also be the organizing work and the on the ground work to build the support for that and to build the support to, frankly, replace people who are going to stand in the way of that or push on people who are going to stand in the way of that. And I think there's not nearly enough of that in our Congress at all, but in the Senate in particularly, like calling people out for their bad positions and being

aggressive about the things that we need to change in the people that we need to change. And I've been unabashed about saying that I'm willing to do that because this idea that this allegiance to decorum has led us to this point. And I think we are past the point of needing to be civil when we are talking about life and death issues. So I think it really comes down to not just signing on or co-sponsoring the right legislation, but actually doing the work to continue that conversation publicly, build a political mandate for it, and yeah, either push on people who we think will change their mind or get rid of the ones who won't. Yeah. And, you know, like what you said about, we're not, I mean, realistically,

we're not going to have these things, you know, if you win or one or two people win until we fundamentally, you know, we need to get rid of a lot of people who are standing in the way of these things and quite frankly, not just the Republican Party. They are a big part of the problem though. But I think the opportunity here is like, you know, I mean, it won't solve these problems. But I think if you can begin to win campaigns against incumbent politicians, like by raising the voters' expectations of the things that they can ask for and then be, and then like that you will be rewarded as a politician with their votes by setting those expectations higher than you're establishing a precedent going forward where people expect

something from the Democratic Party. They expect something from their politicians more. Even if it is unrealistic, like Medicare for All is probably not going to pass the Senate. And it probably, maybe it'll even get shot down by the Supreme Court. But like, if you go from there, like then that frustration becomes productive because it becomes apparent about like who is standing in the way of these things and you know, just how spurious like the reasons for it and just how obvious and overwhelming the support for these things are. So I think, you know, with your campaign and I mean, you must have been heartened by the results in Massachusetts with Markey because I mean, I know he's an incumbent, but you know,

he turned that campaign around by tying himself to things like the Green New Deal. Exactly. And actually fighting for the policy that gets people excited, that fighting for the policy that people know they need. I mean, people know the problems they're facing in their lives. They actually don't need politicians to frankly come up with solutions. They need politicians who are going to fight for the solutions they already know they need. And I do think you make a good point that just look at the conversations we're having even from four and five years ago, right? Like, I didn't have to do education at the doors or on the phones about what Medicare for All is for people. Four years ago, I absolutely would have

had to do that. So the conversation has completely shifted simply by, I think, 10 people really in our government talking about these things, right? Like, and that's not to say to your point, it's easy to win. There's still going to be a lot of people in the way, but we have seen how wins in key places and people who are committed to communicating very directly with the people of our country about what they deserve has changed the conversation. And we have to keep pushing that. And I do think there are people who are probably holding seats right now who are the type of people who look to see how the seas are changing and will adjust their sales and come along. I do think there's people that will never come along and those are the ones I think we have

to replace. But I do believe that it is really about raising the expectations of our voting base and getting more people to be a part of that voting base, to fight back against some of the apathy that people really feel right now because I certainly run into that and changing the conversation to be really about being very direct. I tell people right out, listen, electing me does not get us these things. I know that. But it gets you someone who's committed to fighting for them. And it gets you someone who's committed to actually coming back out to your door and showing up in your neighborhood and having these conversations with you on a continuing basis, not just every six years, four years, two years, whatever it is. And it gets you someone who understands how you

actually build power through different halls and different angles, not just send someone off to DC who thinks it's their job to make all the decisions and never have to be held accountable for them. Jess Garain, I want to thank you so much for joining us. And I want to wish you the best of luck in this upcoming election. Like I said, there's about two days left. First of all, when is the election and what do people, what should they do if they've listened to this and would like to get involved? Yeah. So the election is Tuesday, September 15th. If you want to get involved, we absolutely need people who if you can come to Delaware and consider knocking doors or being a poll greeter, like we'll welcome you here if you're in the sort of the

local area. If you can't and are able to make phone calls, that is incredibly valuable too. We are trying to make like another, you know, 100,000 phone calls basically between now and election day to turn people out. And we're also trying to raise about $15,000 between now and election day to just make sure that we can keep powering this get out, get out the vote apparatus. So if you're able to make a donation, that's huge too. If you can make a donation and then get five friends to match you, that's awesome too. So there's absolutely a way that you can help make this happen. And I think that the impact of this would be really huge and really crucial to the change we're trying to make in our country. So I think I'm biased. I recognize that. But

this is an incredibly important race to show up strong and win. All right, listeners, you have your orders. Jessica Rain, I'm really rooting for you. Best of luck. Thank you. Thanks again. Oh, the hills of dear Newcastle and the smiling veils between when the corn is all in tassel and the metal lands are green where the cattle crop the clover and its breath is in the air while the sun is shining. Oh, our beloved Delaware, our beloved Delaware, for the sun is shining over our beloved Delaware. Oh, our Delaware, our beloved Delaware, here's the loyal sun that pledges faith to good old Delaware.